Today I ate a deli style sandwich with sliced boiled egg instead of meat.
This week has been a battle against ants. A child spilled something sticky in the kitchen a few days ago, and I discovered it after the ants did. After lots and lots of deep cleaning to get all the crumbs (including underneath the oven) and disrupting pheromone trails, the ants decided to spread out through the rest of the house. They did walk all that way for a party, and just because the snacks were gone didn’t mean that they were keen on leaving.
So I put down bait traps and waited a few days.
Ants started climbing up onto the counters, the shelves, the bathroom, the dog … I decided that the bait traps weren’t working and bought spray poison from the grocery store. I did apologize as I sprayed the main ant trail leading toward the house though. There they were, just trying to live their best ant lives, while I’m all, “Die die die,” like a heartless giant.
But I don’t want to live with ants in my everything, and they weren’t taking the bait or going away. I ran out of patience.
Boundaries!
Yeah, I’m kind of writing about ants like they’re an event. I never claimed that I was the most exciting person ever. Or at all. Not that I find this boring, since this has been a fairly epic battle with lots of emotional swings, like hope, despair, and a fierce sense of protectiveness for the bottle of honey. The honey wasn’t going to get contaminated with ants on my watch!
In other news I bought a backpack style carrier for my dog, and he was instantly upgraded from “cute dog” to “weapons-grade cute dog.” I did not anticipate the impact of that fluffy head peaking over my shoulder. 😂 The fact is that I like hiking, and my dog is a terrible companion for solo hikes. He does fine when we have kids along, but when it’s just him and me he constantly freezes up and asks to be carried. It was really killing the joy for me, so I decided that a carrier would be worth it. That style of carrier also makes it easier to take him into the grocery store, because I am one of those people.
With my new carrier, I plan on walking past the wetland just to see what else is out there in the “federally protected mitigation area” I enjoy frequenting. I will take pictures.
Eventually.
By Autumn Rain 